The legend is widespread about how the French Communists disappointed the secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Suslov, when in 1972 they decided to appoint Jean Gondon as the leader of the party. We checked how much this story corresponds to reality.
On the Internet, the text was widely replicated about how at one time the “Gray Cardinal” of the CPSU Mikhail Suslov came into fury from the candidacy, which the French Communists proposed to the post of his leader. The Suslov allegedly regarded the idea of making a person with the name of the largest European Communist Parties as a provocation and undermining of the authority of the USSR and personally Brezhnev by the name of the General Secret. This "scandal" is told, in particular, users Facebook, "Living Journal", site Fishki.net and blog platforms Mayday!. In the note "arguments and facts" about Suslov reported: “One way or another, but almost all the rumors, gossip and fictions accompanying Suslov, sooner or later turned out to be true. In the end, we are talking about "gray cardinal", the whole life of which, by definition, consists of not quite reliable data. And, oddly enough, these data are subsequently confirmed. Maybe the story about embarrassment with the French Communists is true? "
At the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, the leadership of the French Communists really changed. The then head of Waldek Rocher in 1969 headed the party Transferred The operation in Moscow and practically ceased to fulfill its duties. Next year, Georges Marche, who was first for the first time, was the actual head of the Communists Entered In the Party Central Committee back in 1956. At the end of 1972, he officially took the post of general secretary.
It is unlikely that a more harmonious surname of Marsh became some kind of significant reason for his election for this high post. So, back in 1971 (a year before the events described in the replicated text) march represented French Communists at the XXIV Congress of the CPSU. By the way, he was one of the few heads of delegations that did not occupy the post of head of his party at that time. Unlike his predecessor, march I did not support and the events of the Prague Spring, taking the side of the USSR.
We did not succeed in finding any traces of existence among the French communists of that time of a certain Jean Gondon, although people with similar surnames in the party’s activities participated. So, in 1941 in Paris executed Communist Raymond Gandon. Armand Gandon also took part in the resistance, Sentenced to death for the spread of leaflets, and Gaston Gandon, subsequently not for long occupying The post of secretary of the party in Calvados. In the studies known to us about Suslova, the story of Jean Gondon did not find confirmation.
The earliest references to these names and surnames (not only in the context of the story with Suslov), which we discovered, date back to 2005. On February 1, the story of how Gondon’s candidacy refused to support the “Gray Cardinal” of the CPSU, appeared On the site Anekdot.ru. The author of the note reports that he learned about an awkward situation from his father of his friend, who worked as a translator in the Central Committee of the CPSU on Old Square. The story ends with the fact that after the scandal of “birch stores”, French condoms disappeared, and the construction of a new line at the Bakovsky plant of rubber products was frozen for an indefinite period. ”
Satirical news
- https://bigenc.ru/domestic_history/text/4174804
- Gino G. Raymond, The French Communist Party During the Fifth Republic: a Crisis of Leadership and Ideology
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